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The book, The Innovator's Dilemma, totally changed how I view situations like this. Logically it makes sense that Ford or GM could use their existing resources

The book, The Innovator's Dilemma, totally changed how I view situations like this. Logically it makes sense that Ford or GM could use their existing resources to build a electric car factory, and use their existing dealerships to sell those cars under their existing brand. But in reality those existing assets are why GM and Ford cannot catch up. Dealerships make money on services and maintenance. They don't want to sell an Electric that will never need much maintenance. Trying to convert a factory that was designed for ICE cars isn't as easy as building a new factory. And the union employees that have specialized in ICE parts do not want to switch over to Electric. So GM will end up delaying plans so long that they will not be able to compete on price due to Tesla's existing economies of scale. It was obvious in 2012 that Tesla was a threat to ICE, GM and Ford have done very little since then to catch up.

Hypx_ 5y ago
The problem is that now it's hydrogen's turn to do the same with batteries. Tesla is facing it's own disruptive threat, something it is completely unprepared to deal with.
- gjm11 5y ago
  You have made this and similar claims over and over again on HN, but you seem much more interested in making such claims than in supporting them, and your response when challenged has mostly been just to reiterate your statements that hydrogen fuel cells are better (for energy storage in cars) than batteries, or are inevitably going to replace batteries. It reads more like advertising than like actual discussion. What evidence is there that should lead us to expect hydrogen fuel cells to win over batteries, given (1) their currently much much higher costs, (2) their lower efficiency in turning electricity at the power station into kinetic energy of the car, (3) the currently much greater complexity of mechanisms required for a fuel-cell-based vehicle?
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    (2) doesn't seem relevant, as generating hydrogen happens whenever electricity is cheap and charging cars happen whenever the care pulls up. Other that that, I thought hydrogen was cheaper than batteries. But I don't know much about it.
  - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
    What I've read lines up with the three points you've made, so I tend to agree. However: What we're seeing in Australia is federal government support for hydrogen power after over a decade of strong resistance to alternatives (specifically renewables: wind and solar), and no support for electric vehicles at all. I'm definitely mixing together a few different areas of power / electricity / energy here, but the fact the Australian government is seizing upon hydrogen just makes my cynical mind assume that hydrogen manufacture and usage fits better with the status quo and therefore is easier to understand by those in power - ie. centralised / consolidated control as opposed to more consumer-level control. This could be Hydrogen's killer feature in the end.
    - wallacoloo 5y ago
      the infrastructure bill working its way through the US includes a few $billion in subsidies for hydrogen fuel, too. there’s a couple takes on why, but the most charitable one is that solar/wind/batteries have enough momentum that they don’t need subsidies, and govt views energy diversity as a valuable thing and is subsidizing hydrogen to achieve that.
    - Hypx_ 5y ago
      There is the possibility that Australia is simply correct in their assessment. They're a long ways away from both Silicon Valley and Brussels, and may be acting as an independent entity that is free from external influences.
      - lillecarl 5y ago
        Australia is a major suck-up to the US, the government of Australia is infringing on it's citizens freedom and releasing more co2 into the atmosphere per capita than any other country.
      - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
        I doubt physical distance has much to do with it. Australia is closer to China than the US, for example. Australia gets a LOT of sunshine and has a LOT of empty space, which is conducive to being solar friendly. Australia also exports a lot of coal and a lot or iron ore (which is then processed using coal-generated heat), which is conducive to promoting its value and suppressing any alternatives. Electric vehicles, however, work towards solving a specific national security problem for Australia in it's "domestic fuel security"[0][1][2][3]. A problem of which the UK is kindly highlighting the importance. [0]: https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/australias-lack-of-fuel-our-national-security-achilles-heel/news-story/494ddda75ae802b007d085a7727566cb https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/a... [1]: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-must-fast-track-new-domestic-storage-to-ensure-fuel-security/ https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-must-fast-track-... [2]: https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/key-enablers/7790-what-s-next-for-australian-fuel-reserves https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/key-enablers/7790-what-s-n... [3]: https://www.drive.com.au/news/government-scrambles-to-maintain-australias-fuel-security-in-federal-budget/ https://www.drive.com.au/news/government-scrambles-to-mainta...
  - Hypx_ 5y ago
    The problem with (1) is that complaining about this is usually the last bastion of a dying industry. This is particularly true if the alternative is a completely new idea it would normally be much more expensive to begin with. So it would really just be a countdown until it is no longer true. The problem of (2) is that all attempts to generate electricity with renewables (and with no fossil fuel backups) have resulted in extreme problems. In short, when it is windy or sunny, you have too much electricity and no way of storing it. When it is not windy or sunny, you have nothing and are forced to resort to fossil fuels. Ultimately, it's being found out that being able to store electricity is far more important than making it efficient. And (3) is just dumb Ludditism. As if the small increase in complexity is any kind of problem. Fuel cells are far simpler than internal combustion engines after all. Batteries are actually worse from a supply chain standpoint since now you have a much higher need for certain elements that are not widely available.
    - rout39574 5y ago
      Your reply feels to me like blustering, and trying to shout down the question. Some data on why you think systemic hydrogen costs are going to catch up with systemic battery-electric costs, for example, would contribute to (1) far more than your posturing. You'd be a better advocate if you spoke to the issues.
      - Hypx_ 5y ago
        As it stands now, the biggest revolution in energy right now is the rapid reduction in hydrogen cost: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/06/24/low-cost-renewable-hydrogen-may-already-be-in-reach/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/06/24/low-cost-renewable-hy... Once things hit their exponential growth curve, things might happen a lot faster than people expect.
    - holoduke 5y ago
      I charge my car from my own solar panels. Cost me nearly nothing.
      - Hypx_ 5y ago
  - caf 5y ago
    In my estimation, the ultimate problem with hydrogen isn't any of those three - it's that it's simply far less convenient than battery. Once someone has experienced what it's like to be able to "fill up" overnight at home for all their day-to-day driving, the idea of reverting to the old "visit the fuelling station once a week" routine seems decidedly passe. It could work for long-haul commercial vehicles though.
    - Hypx_ 5y ago
      Except no one drives at home. Every EV fan still complains about lack of public charging stations. I suspect few people really find home recharging as any kind of game changer.
      - caf 5y ago
        My experience is that complaints about lack of public charging stations tend to be more from those considering buying an EV than those actually with one. (Those who drive an EV tend to complain more about the maintenance of the public stations than the number of them).
        Hypx_ 5y ago
        Same thing. Everyone uses public stations all the time.
        caf 5y ago
        They really don't. Pretty much anyone with the ability to charge at home, charges at home for all their day-to-day driving, with stops at charging stations used only for infrequent longer trips.
        Hypx_ 5y ago
        Only because they have to. If there was a way to recharge within 3 minutes publically, the home charging solution would be rarely used.
- anonAndOn 5y ago
  When do hydrogen roof panels come out? Will they be competitively priced with electric?
  - Hypx_ 5y ago
    Actually they exist now. You can generate hydrogen directly for sunlight and a photocatalyst. Although we don't know how cost effective this is right now, and the traditional way of having a separate electrolyzer might be cheaper for the time being.
    - anonAndOn 5y ago
      How easy is it for someone handy to set up? Can the home hobbyist install a hydrogen refueling system in their garage with some panels up on the roof? (related: Does conduit handle hydrogen at 10,000psi or do I have to build it out of black iron?)
      - Hypx_ 5y ago
        Possible. In fact a company called LAVO is building a home hydrogen battery for energy storage. Although compressing it to 10,000 psi at home is not quite ready yet, although companies are working on it.
Hypx_ 5y ago
A point I want to make about the "Innovator's Dilemma" with regards to my other comment: It does not happen when everyone gets together and just agrees that "X is true" with zero critical thought. It happens when a group of radicals abandon old ideas and rethinks the problem, leading to radical new ideas. But the problem is that everyone here is just convinced that it can't happen, usually using very facile thinking. Few are asking any hard questions. As long as this stays true, hydrogen will continue to pose an enormous threat to Tesla.
- thirdlamp 5y ago
  Hydrogen will not be a threat to any electric personal vehicle simply because it’s 3x less efficient (electrolyze water to split it) and thus 3x more expensive to run.
  - Hypx_ 5y ago
    Really just a meme at this point. The risk here is that hydrogen cars end up being cheaper to run than electric cars. A real possibility due to the production of hydrogen from curtailed renewables, higher battery costs, hydrogen being much more efficient than believed, as well as cheaper distribution costs since hydrogen can be piped in natural gas pipelines.
    - thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
      > hydrogen being much more efficient than believed God/Allah/Nature obviously don't understand disruption, growth mindset and can-do-spirit. facepalm There are hard physical limitations that no amount of human ingenuity can do anything about. 237kJ/mole is the theoretical minimum of energy required for water electrolysis. energy->electrolysis->energy round-trip efficiency won't exceed 45%, even if everything, from the energy source to the car wheel spinning, is perfectly frictionless and operating at peak theoretical efficiency. No, you cannot use existing gas pipelines for transporting hydrogen. For passenger cars, EVs today are already better than what physics allow hydrogen cars to ever be.
ctdonath 5y ago
Related anecdote: mega-brand Kodak died because film retailers threatened to stop carrying film if Kodak made serious moves into digital photography, as retailers relied on foot traffic driven by film (enter store once to buy film, again to return it, again to pick up photo prints). Kodak couldn’t risk its money printer, so couldn’t be ready when consumers switched to digital practically overnight. Ditto cars. Manufacturers are beholden to dealers, who need complex vehicles that need extensive repairs. Related, fueling stations need customers who can’t power vehicles at home.
- conductr 5y ago
  I think this explains their delay to electrify, but at this point they all realize Tesla is an existential threat that must be competed against. They essentially let Tesla prove the market and now they know what their competing with. Dealers and service revenue is the analog to the buggy whip industry, it has to go. On what time horizon is the question.
- caf 5y ago
  Fuelling stations just need traffic. The fuel itself is break-even, they're corner stores with a gimmick to get you in the door.
- thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
  If I remember the Kodak case well - their own research predicted that digital cameras will massively shrink the total addressable market. Which is exactly what happened. Outside of professionals or hobbyist, who even buys a camera nowadays? No amount of innovation, pivoting or clever engineering could have saved Kodak. They were not flabbergasted at the technological change. The best course of action was to milk the existing market for as long as possible, which is exactly what they did
- dagw 5y ago
  The real irony is that parts of Kodak where totally on top of digital photography before anyone else. They built both the first digital stills camera and the first commercially available digital SLR. In fact there was a time in the 90s where they owned the (admittedly very small) digital SLR market. However the film side of the business convinced the senior executives to kill the digital side of the business, to protect their film margins.
1970-01-01 5y ago
Clayton and his friends at Harvard did a great job justifying how Tesla would not be a long-term disruptor when it expanded into the $35,000 vehicle class. It was a safe and justified thing to say in 2015, but it turns out they were pretty darn wrong about Tesla's future!
- hef19898 5y ago
  In 2015 it was a question whether Tesla figures out mass production before the others figure out EVs. I guess it was draw, Tesla figured out a way to build the existing model range reasonably well at scale while the others figured out EVs well enough to prevent Tesla from being the "only" EV manufacturer. Tesla still has to do face lifts for the existing range so. And Tesla has to show that they can build cheap EVs for a mass market. In the luxury segment, sure Tesla is a serious contender. In the compact segment much less so.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    Tesla will be a series competitor in that segment when they strategically decide to play in that segment. The cheap Tesla are cheaper then much of the competition. And Tesla are produced at higher rates from single lines then literally any other EVs. It simply doesn't make sense for them to go into compact segment yet. They are still growing 50% a year just on Model 3/Y and Cybertruck has gigantic potential. They simply don't have the batteries or chips to grow more. Why introduce more models if you are limited by the supply chain? Once Tesla actually launches a compact it will be coming to all China, Europe and the US being manufactured in each place with their own battery production located near by.
- beamatronic 5y ago
  The only reason I don’t have a second Tesla, is the falcon wing doors. Hoping for an alternative and putting it off as long as possible.
  - sliken 5y ago
    Model Y?
pjmlp 5y ago
Tesla seems to only care mostly about the US market, currently all the other brands are a much better option to own around European countries.
bmitc 5y ago
Why do people talk about only Ford and GM, as if they’re even relevant in the car world anymore? The danger to Tesla is not these companies, aside from some competition in the electric F-150. The real challengers are those like Kia, Hyundai, and the Japanese and European brands. Kia is already making all electric cars, so it’s proof that ICE manufacturers can switch over. Brands like Kia have decades of experience making dozens of different models every year, iterating on them, and creating new ones. Tesla barely manages with three or four models. My Kia Optima SXL has better fit and finish than any Tesla I’ve been in. I also find the Teslas I see on the road very bland. They look like old cars, because they are (in terms of their overall design). I’ve also been in several Chinese brands, including Nio. Nio blows Tesla out of the water in terms of interior design, and I like the external look better. It’s much more luxurious feeling. We’ve yet to see if Chinese brands can compete in the west, but Nio and WM Motor are very nice cars. There are also several, and I mean several, all electric car makers in China that make quite nice cars. I’ve ridden in several where I was like, whoa, what is this car? I personally will be quite surprised if Tesla can outlive the hype it’s gotten from first adopters and its poor practices alongside increasing competition. https://www.kia.com/us/en/ev6 https://www.kia.com/us/en/ev6
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Making a few EV is easy, making many is hard. The Japanese have largely closed their eyes to any problem and pretend EV don't exist. VW among the Europeans is the only one that seriously has invested in battery capacity and supply chain. BMW has not even switched to creating dedicated EV platforms yet. Daimler is a huge company that has very high aspirations for profitability and they are partially unwilling to that kill their cash cows. Hyundai is fine and they will be a good in the market.d I mean several, all electric car makers in China that make quite nice cars. I’ve ridden in several where I was like, whoa, what is this car? Nio is small yet and they are selling only premium cars and they are really design for cities in China more then anything esle. > I personally will be quite surprised if Tesla can outlive the hype it’s gotten from first adopters If at this point your are still talking about first adopters you have missed what is happening. The idea that Tesla would go bankrupt is crazy, they literally have years long waiting list for some of their products. Yes, of course they will not have 100% market share. The point is, Tesla is far ahead right now in terms of how many BEV they produce. They are expanding really fast and they are doing really well on margin. They are well ahead of going down the supply chain, making their own cells and even their own battery factories. Tesla has proven to be very porfitable making only EVs, non of the other non-startup companies have done that. In fact they do everything they can to not share that information.
jollybean 5y ago
No, they're doing just fine. Tesla Model 3 is a very popular car, but aside from that, it's competitive across the field. Japanese will fill in while US makers lag a bit but my bet is these things take time to change, and GM/Ford have incumbency advantage esp. with trucks etc.. Tesla will end up being 'another car company'. Amazing feat to break into the business, but really, if you look at EV sales over time, Tesla was just one of many players.
moffkalast 5y ago
It took them way too long to switch over from the initial "sell electrics only to a niche crowd that wants to be unique", leading to absolutely ugly cars like the BMW i3 and whatever Citroen calls their abominations. Check the top selling electric car list and it's all normal looking cars with electric drivetrains. It wasn't just the production that messed up, but also the design and marketing department.
- pmorici 5y ago
  My assumption is the ugly design of early electric cars was intentional to make sure they didn’t sell too well. Tesla broke that cartel and showed the reason those early cars didn’t have universal appeal is because they were horrible vehicles not because they were electric.
  - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
    The fact that even BMW created an abominably ugly electric car is proof enough for me that it was an active decision to uglify them as a disincentive to purchase. BMW must have been in a very difficult spot to release that swollen pug-face of a car into public view. It's "smart" business, but "smart" business almost always overlaps entirely with "X unfriendly" (where X = consumer, environment among others).
  - VintageCool 5y ago
    Early hybrids and EVs were designed to stand out and show that the owner cared about the environment to drive an EV. Now that EVs have arrived and make sense for every car, the styling should change to just be a good-looking good-driving car.
    - moffkalast 5y ago
      At least that's what they tell us the design was for.
- numpad0 5y ago
  Do they even have to be electric or hybrids? Is it that EV buyers specifically prefer normal looking cars or is it the case that cars are getting uglier and uglier and demand for non-goofy cars have been brewing for years?
azinman2 5y ago
You say that, but I actually love my VW ID.4. I test drove Audi's eTron, Tesla 3 & Y, and ultimately bought an ID.4. I liked that it wasn't a Tesla (especially in the Bay Area where it's gotten BMW-asshole status.. and I say that as a previous BMW owner), was more comfortable, bigger interior, had CarPlay, more like a traditional car (no single middle screen), and was quite a bit cheaper. Were there things I liked better about other cars? Sure. But they largely weren't the important factors for me. I also got 3 years of free charging with the Electrify America network, which is no small thing, although I primarily charge at home now. I wouldn't downplay any competition. It can take a while to catch up, but cars are fickle things that people buy for all kinds of reasons. It's not like pre-Tesla everyone owned only one brand.
- gitfan86 5y ago
  Of course there will be other brands. The iPhone is by far the most successful phone brand, and they ship less than 30% of new phones each year. Something similar could happen here, where GM loses share like Nokia did, and new companies like Lucid take a market segment, like LG does with phones.
  - jonplackett 5y ago
    Important to note though that Apply extract a great deal more than 30% of the profit from the market
    - sliken 5y ago
      The most recent numbers I've heard of is 75%. So android is typically a battle to the bottom, with various mostly failed efforts, consolidation, various vendors giving up on markets, etc. Motorola (bought and then sold by google), Sony, HTC and many others are not making much profit. Samsung is doing better, but constantly fighting cheaper competitors. Seems like Samsung is doing as well as it is, because of synergies relating to their production of CPUs, having a chip fab, screens, dram, flash, and cameras for the world wide market. Android's a tough market to be in, you are competing with Google (who makes pixel phones), numerous low cost manufacturers, Apple, and your ecosystem taxed by google through the app store and the market is split among many companies in the android system so it's hard to catch google's services, play store, etc. Not that android manufacturers aren't trying. Amazon made an effort, but seems to have largely given up on calling their devices android.

Hypx_ 5y ago

The problem is that now it's hydrogen's turn to do the same with batteries. Tesla is facing it's own disruptive threat, something it is completely unprepared to deal with.

gjm11 5y ago
You have made this and similar claims over and over again on HN, but you seem much more interested in making such claims than in supporting them, and your response when challenged has mostly been just to reiterate your statements that hydrogen fuel cells are better (for energy storage in cars) than batteries, or are inevitably going to replace batteries. It reads more like advertising than like actual discussion. What evidence is there that should lead us to expect hydrogen fuel cells to win over batteries, given (1) their currently much much higher costs, (2) their lower efficiency in turning electricity at the power station into kinetic energy of the car, (3) the currently much greater complexity of mechanisms required for a fuel-cell-based vehicle?
- HWR_14 5y ago
  (2) doesn't seem relevant, as generating hydrogen happens whenever electricity is cheap and charging cars happen whenever the care pulls up. Other that that, I thought hydrogen was cheaper than batteries. But I don't know much about it.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  What I've read lines up with the three points you've made, so I tend to agree. However: What we're seeing in Australia is federal government support for hydrogen power after over a decade of strong resistance to alternatives (specifically renewables: wind and solar), and no support for electric vehicles at all. I'm definitely mixing together a few different areas of power / electricity / energy here, but the fact the Australian government is seizing upon hydrogen just makes my cynical mind assume that hydrogen manufacture and usage fits better with the status quo and therefore is easier to understand by those in power - ie. centralised / consolidated control as opposed to more consumer-level control. This could be Hydrogen's killer feature in the end.
  - wallacoloo 5y ago
    the infrastructure bill working its way through the US includes a few $billion in subsidies for hydrogen fuel, too. there’s a couple takes on why, but the most charitable one is that solar/wind/batteries have enough momentum that they don’t need subsidies, and govt views energy diversity as a valuable thing and is subsidizing hydrogen to achieve that.
  - Hypx_ 5y ago
    There is the possibility that Australia is simply correct in their assessment. They're a long ways away from both Silicon Valley and Brussels, and may be acting as an independent entity that is free from external influences.
    - lillecarl 5y ago
      Australia is a major suck-up to the US, the government of Australia is infringing on it's citizens freedom and releasing more co2 into the atmosphere per capita than any other country.
    - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
      I doubt physical distance has much to do with it. Australia is closer to China than the US, for example. Australia gets a LOT of sunshine and has a LOT of empty space, which is conducive to being solar friendly. Australia also exports a lot of coal and a lot or iron ore (which is then processed using coal-generated heat), which is conducive to promoting its value and suppressing any alternatives. Electric vehicles, however, work towards solving a specific national security problem for Australia in it's "domestic fuel security"[0][1][2][3]. A problem of which the UK is kindly highlighting the importance. [0]: https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/australias-lack-of-fuel-our-national-security-achilles-heel/news-story/494ddda75ae802b007d085a7727566cb https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/a... [1]: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-must-fast-track-new-domestic-storage-to-ensure-fuel-security/ https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-must-fast-track-... [2]: https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/key-enablers/7790-what-s-next-for-australian-fuel-reserves https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/key-enablers/7790-what-s-n... [3]: https://www.drive.com.au/news/government-scrambles-to-maintain-australias-fuel-security-in-federal-budget/ https://www.drive.com.au/news/government-scrambles-to-mainta...
- Hypx_ 5y ago
  The problem with (1) is that complaining about this is usually the last bastion of a dying industry. This is particularly true if the alternative is a completely new idea it would normally be much more expensive to begin with. So it would really just be a countdown until it is no longer true. The problem of (2) is that all attempts to generate electricity with renewables (and with no fossil fuel backups) have resulted in extreme problems. In short, when it is windy or sunny, you have too much electricity and no way of storing it. When it is not windy or sunny, you have nothing and are forced to resort to fossil fuels. Ultimately, it's being found out that being able to store electricity is far more important than making it efficient. And (3) is just dumb Ludditism. As if the small increase in complexity is any kind of problem. Fuel cells are far simpler than internal combustion engines after all. Batteries are actually worse from a supply chain standpoint since now you have a much higher need for certain elements that are not widely available.
  - rout39574 5y ago
    Your reply feels to me like blustering, and trying to shout down the question. Some data on why you think systemic hydrogen costs are going to catch up with systemic battery-electric costs, for example, would contribute to (1) far more than your posturing. You'd be a better advocate if you spoke to the issues.
    - Hypx_ 5y ago
      As it stands now, the biggest revolution in energy right now is the rapid reduction in hydrogen cost: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/06/24/low-cost-renewable-hydrogen-may-already-be-in-reach/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/06/24/low-cost-renewable-hy... Once things hit their exponential growth curve, things might happen a lot faster than people expect.
  - holoduke 5y ago
    I charge my car from my own solar panels. Cost me nearly nothing.
    - Hypx_ 5y ago
- caf 5y ago
  In my estimation, the ultimate problem with hydrogen isn't any of those three - it's that it's simply far less convenient than battery. Once someone has experienced what it's like to be able to "fill up" overnight at home for all their day-to-day driving, the idea of reverting to the old "visit the fuelling station once a week" routine seems decidedly passe. It could work for long-haul commercial vehicles though.
  - Hypx_ 5y ago
    Except no one drives at home. Every EV fan still complains about lack of public charging stations. I suspect few people really find home recharging as any kind of game changer.
    - caf 5y ago
      My experience is that complaints about lack of public charging stations tend to be more from those considering buying an EV than those actually with one. (Those who drive an EV tend to complain more about the maintenance of the public stations than the number of them).
      - Hypx_ 5y ago
        Same thing. Everyone uses public stations all the time.
        caf 5y ago
        They really don't. Pretty much anyone with the ability to charge at home, charges at home for all their day-to-day driving, with stops at charging stations used only for infrequent longer trips.
        Hypx_ 5y ago
        Only because they have to. If there was a way to recharge within 3 minutes publically, the home charging solution would be rarely used.
anonAndOn 5y ago
When do hydrogen roof panels come out? Will they be competitively priced with electric?
- Hypx_ 5y ago
  Actually they exist now. You can generate hydrogen directly for sunlight and a photocatalyst. Although we don't know how cost effective this is right now, and the traditional way of having a separate electrolyzer might be cheaper for the time being.
  - anonAndOn 5y ago
    How easy is it for someone handy to set up? Can the home hobbyist install a hydrogen refueling system in their garage with some panels up on the roof? (related: Does conduit handle hydrogen at 10,000psi or do I have to build it out of black iron?)
    - Hypx_ 5y ago
      Possible. In fact a company called LAVO is building a home hydrogen battery for energy storage. Although compressing it to 10,000 psi at home is not quite ready yet, although companies are working on it.

Hypx_ 5y ago

A point I want to make about the "Innovator's Dilemma" with regards to my other comment: It does not happen when everyone gets together and just agrees that "X is true" with zero critical thought. It happens when a group of radicals abandon old ideas and rethinks the problem, leading to radical new ideas. But the problem is that everyone here is just convinced that it can't happen, usually using very facile thinking. Few are asking any hard questions. As long as this stays true, hydrogen will continue to pose an enormous threat to Tesla.

thirdlamp 5y ago
Hydrogen will not be a threat to any electric personal vehicle simply because it’s 3x less efficient (electrolyze water to split it) and thus 3x more expensive to run.
- Hypx_ 5y ago
  Really just a meme at this point. The risk here is that hydrogen cars end up being cheaper to run than electric cars. A real possibility due to the production of hydrogen from curtailed renewables, higher battery costs, hydrogen being much more efficient than believed, as well as cheaper distribution costs since hydrogen can be piped in natural gas pipelines.
  - thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
    > hydrogen being much more efficient than believed God/Allah/Nature obviously don't understand disruption, growth mindset and can-do-spirit. facepalm There are hard physical limitations that no amount of human ingenuity can do anything about. 237kJ/mole is the theoretical minimum of energy required for water electrolysis. energy->electrolysis->energy round-trip efficiency won't exceed 45%, even if everything, from the energy source to the car wheel spinning, is perfectly frictionless and operating at peak theoretical efficiency. No, you cannot use existing gas pipelines for transporting hydrogen. For passenger cars, EVs today are already better than what physics allow hydrogen cars to ever be.

ctdonath 5y ago

Related anecdote: mega-brand Kodak died because film retailers threatened to stop carrying film if Kodak made serious moves into digital photography, as retailers relied on foot traffic driven by film (enter store once to buy film, again to return it, again to pick up photo prints). Kodak couldn’t risk its money printer, so couldn’t be ready when consumers switched to digital practically overnight. Ditto cars. Manufacturers are beholden to dealers, who need complex vehicles that need extensive repairs. Related, fueling stations need customers who can’t power vehicles at home.

conductr 5y ago
I think this explains their delay to electrify, but at this point they all realize Tesla is an existential threat that must be competed against. They essentially let Tesla prove the market and now they know what their competing with. Dealers and service revenue is the analog to the buggy whip industry, it has to go. On what time horizon is the question.
caf 5y ago
Fuelling stations just need traffic. The fuel itself is break-even, they're corner stores with a gimmick to get you in the door.
thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
If I remember the Kodak case well - their own research predicted that digital cameras will massively shrink the total addressable market. Which is exactly what happened. Outside of professionals or hobbyist, who even buys a camera nowadays? No amount of innovation, pivoting or clever engineering could have saved Kodak. They were not flabbergasted at the technological change. The best course of action was to milk the existing market for as long as possible, which is exactly what they did
dagw 5y ago
The real irony is that parts of Kodak where totally on top of digital photography before anyone else. They built both the first digital stills camera and the first commercially available digital SLR. In fact there was a time in the 90s where they owned the (admittedly very small) digital SLR market. However the film side of the business convinced the senior executives to kill the digital side of the business, to protect their film margins.

1970-01-01 5y ago

Clayton and his friends at Harvard did a great job justifying how Tesla would not be a long-term disruptor when it expanded into the $35,000 vehicle class. It was a safe and justified thing to say in 2015, but it turns out they were pretty darn wrong about Tesla's future!

hef19898 5y ago
In 2015 it was a question whether Tesla figures out mass production before the others figure out EVs. I guess it was draw, Tesla figured out a way to build the existing model range reasonably well at scale while the others figured out EVs well enough to prevent Tesla from being the "only" EV manufacturer. Tesla still has to do face lifts for the existing range so. And Tesla has to show that they can build cheap EVs for a mass market. In the luxury segment, sure Tesla is a serious contender. In the compact segment much less so.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Tesla will be a series competitor in that segment when they strategically decide to play in that segment. The cheap Tesla are cheaper then much of the competition. And Tesla are produced at higher rates from single lines then literally any other EVs. It simply doesn't make sense for them to go into compact segment yet. They are still growing 50% a year just on Model 3/Y and Cybertruck has gigantic potential. They simply don't have the batteries or chips to grow more. Why introduce more models if you are limited by the supply chain? Once Tesla actually launches a compact it will be coming to all China, Europe and the US being manufactured in each place with their own battery production located near by.
beamatronic 5y ago
The only reason I don’t have a second Tesla, is the falcon wing doors. Hoping for an alternative and putting it off as long as possible.
- sliken 5y ago
  Model Y?

pjmlp 5y ago

Tesla seems to only care mostly about the US market, currently all the other brands are a much better option to own around European countries.

bmitc 5y ago

Why do people talk about only Ford and GM, as if they’re even relevant in the car world anymore? The danger to Tesla is not these companies, aside from some competition in the electric F-150. The real challengers are those like Kia, Hyundai, and the Japanese and European brands. Kia is already making all electric cars, so it’s proof that ICE manufacturers can switch over. Brands like Kia have decades of experience making dozens of different models every year, iterating on them, and creating new ones. Tesla barely manages with three or four models. My Kia Optima SXL has better fit and finish than any Tesla I’ve been in. I also find the Teslas I see on the road very bland. They look like old cars, because they are (in terms of their overall design). I’ve also been in several Chinese brands, including Nio. Nio blows Tesla out of the water in terms of interior design, and I like the external look better. It’s much more luxurious feeling. We’ve yet to see if Chinese brands can compete in the west, but Nio and WM Motor are very nice cars. There are also several, and I mean several, all electric car makers in China that make quite nice cars. I’ve ridden in several where I was like, whoa, what is this car? I personally will be quite surprised if Tesla can outlive the hype it’s gotten from first adopters and its poor practices alongside increasing competition. https://www.kia.com/us/en/ev6 https://www.kia.com/us/en/ev6

panick21_ 5y ago
Making a few EV is easy, making many is hard. The Japanese have largely closed their eyes to any problem and pretend EV don't exist. VW among the Europeans is the only one that seriously has invested in battery capacity and supply chain. BMW has not even switched to creating dedicated EV platforms yet. Daimler is a huge company that has very high aspirations for profitability and they are partially unwilling to that kill their cash cows. Hyundai is fine and they will be a good in the market.d I mean several, all electric car makers in China that make quite nice cars. I’ve ridden in several where I was like, whoa, what is this car? Nio is small yet and they are selling only premium cars and they are really design for cities in China more then anything esle. > I personally will be quite surprised if Tesla can outlive the hype it’s gotten from first adopters If at this point your are still talking about first adopters you have missed what is happening. The idea that Tesla would go bankrupt is crazy, they literally have years long waiting list for some of their products. Yes, of course they will not have 100% market share. The point is, Tesla is far ahead right now in terms of how many BEV they produce. They are expanding really fast and they are doing really well on margin. They are well ahead of going down the supply chain, making their own cells and even their own battery factories. Tesla has proven to be very porfitable making only EVs, non of the other non-startup companies have done that. In fact they do everything they can to not share that information.

jollybean 5y ago

No, they're doing just fine. Tesla Model 3 is a very popular car, but aside from that, it's competitive across the field. Japanese will fill in while US makers lag a bit but my bet is these things take time to change, and GM/Ford have incumbency advantage esp. with trucks etc.. Tesla will end up being 'another car company'. Amazing feat to break into the business, but really, if you look at EV sales over time, Tesla was just one of many players.

moffkalast 5y ago

It took them way too long to switch over from the initial "sell electrics only to a niche crowd that wants to be unique", leading to absolutely ugly cars like the BMW i3 and whatever Citroen calls their abominations. Check the top selling electric car list and it's all normal looking cars with electric drivetrains. It wasn't just the production that messed up, but also the design and marketing department.

pmorici 5y ago
My assumption is the ugly design of early electric cars was intentional to make sure they didn’t sell too well. Tesla broke that cartel and showed the reason those early cars didn’t have universal appeal is because they were horrible vehicles not because they were electric.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  The fact that even BMW created an abominably ugly electric car is proof enough for me that it was an active decision to uglify them as a disincentive to purchase. BMW must have been in a very difficult spot to release that swollen pug-face of a car into public view. It's "smart" business, but "smart" business almost always overlaps entirely with "X unfriendly" (where X = consumer, environment among others).
- VintageCool 5y ago
  Early hybrids and EVs were designed to stand out and show that the owner cared about the environment to drive an EV. Now that EVs have arrived and make sense for every car, the styling should change to just be a good-looking good-driving car.
  - moffkalast 5y ago
    At least that's what they tell us the design was for.
numpad0 5y ago
Do they even have to be electric or hybrids? Is it that EV buyers specifically prefer normal looking cars or is it the case that cars are getting uglier and uglier and demand for non-goofy cars have been brewing for years?

azinman2 5y ago

You say that, but I actually love my VW ID.4. I test drove Audi's eTron, Tesla 3 & Y, and ultimately bought an ID.4. I liked that it wasn't a Tesla (especially in the Bay Area where it's gotten BMW-asshole status.. and I say that as a previous BMW owner), was more comfortable, bigger interior, had CarPlay, more like a traditional car (no single middle screen), and was quite a bit cheaper. Were there things I liked better about other cars? Sure. But they largely weren't the important factors for me. I also got 3 years of free charging with the Electrify America network, which is no small thing, although I primarily charge at home now. I wouldn't downplay any competition. It can take a while to catch up, but cars are fickle things that people buy for all kinds of reasons. It's not like pre-Tesla everyone owned only one brand.

gitfan86 5y ago
Of course there will be other brands. The iPhone is by far the most successful phone brand, and they ship less than 30% of new phones each year. Something similar could happen here, where GM loses share like Nokia did, and new companies like Lucid take a market segment, like LG does with phones.
- jonplackett 5y ago
  Important to note though that Apply extract a great deal more than 30% of the profit from the market
  - sliken 5y ago
    The most recent numbers I've heard of is 75%. So android is typically a battle to the bottom, with various mostly failed efforts, consolidation, various vendors giving up on markets, etc. Motorola (bought and then sold by google), Sony, HTC and many others are not making much profit. Samsung is doing better, but constantly fighting cheaper competitors. Seems like Samsung is doing as well as it is, because of synergies relating to their production of CPUs, having a chip fab, screens, dram, flash, and cameras for the world wide market. Android's a tough market to be in, you are competing with Google (who makes pixel phones), numerous low cost manufacturers, Apple, and your ecosystem taxed by google through the app store and the market is split among many companies in the android system so it's hard to catch google's services, play store, etc. Not that android manufacturers aren't trying. Amazon made an effort, but seems to have largely given up on calling their devices android.